Book description
Donald Worster examines the development history of the American West, identifying the elite of technology and wealth who have controlled its most essential resource: water.
Why read it?
1 author picked Rivers of Empire as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
This is a classic by a leader in the field. It’s a hefty tome combining philosophy, economics, and history, but is well worth the time and energy required. Worster emphasizes that lack of water resources is a massive problem for the modern American West, necessitating increasingly complex and far-reaching irrigation systems that come at high social and economic costs. The result is an “empire” whose power is based on who controls the water vital to the urban, suburban, and rural life of the hydraulic west.
From Nancy's list on The best books on the environmental history of the United States.
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